Hidden Dynasty

Outdated, Out of Touch, Out of Luck

Elina proposes that the Dynasty picks up a couple Astropaths before leaving for the pickup and Torian and Elina head to the Pit of Voices to lookup any astropaths. The place is creepy and Torian is NOT happy to be there. They spend the next couple hours searching for psykers and investigating the Pit of Voices. Torian has a low grade headache the entire time. They are warned of one of the inhabitants of The Pit being an amazingly powerful seer and warned to try to avoid him. But while searching for astropaths they come across him and Torian and Elina have a vision and Torian is shaken by the images.

Eventually, they settle on three astropaths and have them return to the ship at a later time while Torian arranges for their pay and benefits. The first AStropath continually mutters single words and demanded Grapes as being amongst his fee… “Space space space space space YES! yes space…”
The second wanders through the walkways tappign himself on his forehead constantly and when in reach of something else… alternating the tapping. Tap the wall tap my head tap the wall tap my head… etc.
The third came in with voluminous robes and acting as if she was stroking something in her huge sleeves… and amongst her fee was a supply of kitties.

Thale, last minute, rushes out and hires the Spiced Rat vendor and his immediate employees to come on board and make Spiced Rat for the crew. (And Thale)

The ship takes off from Footfall and heads out to the transit point out of system… The Luck blazes forward and then her engines stop dead and she continues to coast along towards the edge of the Shield Shrines effect. Lucian races to get the engines back online and tries to convince the Machine Spirit to admit that the ship has engines. However, the ship doesn’t remember ever having engines and isn’t willing to admit that it might have engines now. Eventually, Lucian is able to get the Machine Spirit to accept that it has engines and always had engines and it doesn’t know why Lucian is complaining about them not working since obviously they are working now aren’t they.

Areidna notices, however, that the ship tends to pull towards planetary bodies but when Lucian goes to try to find a way to fix it… The problems stop.

Once the ship gets out to the transit points, the ship translates into warp and heads along towards it’s destination. Along the trip however, the geller field starts to fluctuate and ribbons of the warp starts to intrude upon the ship. Kalmen and Areadna vox to complain to Lucian about it and Lucian is unable to stop the field from failing. Claxons are ringing across the ship and Torian is hiding in his bed room and fails his fear test. The crew is also not doing well since this is amongst their first few transits and things are falling to shit.

Kalmen is able to wrest the ship into realspace at around the time that the geller field fails completely. As the auspex units go into action to try to piece together the location and setting of the unexpected warp exit, Lucian tries to figure out what is wrong and totally fucks up the roll(00) and has no fate points left. :) However, Lucian is willing to burn his “good luck” and so a junior tech priest points out that Lucian tripped over a cable and once plugged back in… the diagnostics report what needs to be fixed. A two day job to get the Geller field online.

The astropaths in the choir are looked in on after the warp horrors and the “space space space” guy is standing in the middle of the primary choir chamber shouting “WEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!” at the top of his lungs.

Hours or so later, the auspex units have started to return information that can be regarded as possibly truthworth and the void outside can be pieced together.

They find a single rogue planet far outside the blessed warmth of a primary star it’s atmosphere frozen into solid by the cold void around it. The ship continues it’s scans and a couple hours later, a brilliant flash of burning psychic power floods the ship and lights up the auspex array like an Emperor’s Visit tree. The planet is every six hours giving off a huge blast of power and energy as it rotates around it’s axis. Under the ice of the atmosphere there is a power source that is very similar to the output of the astropathic choir.

After spending 1.5 days getting close to the planet and getting more information, Kalmen is pretty certain he can find his way back here again and they don’t haev time to investigate the planetoid further. (M Class world about the size and shape of earth.) They head on to the pickup.

The warp trip to the pickup coordinates is simple and goes off without a hitch. We ended there to pickup next week.

The liege escorts Kalmen and Torian around to the interesting people of the meeting. Introduces them to The Provisor, Hadarak Fel, The Obsidian Emporium and others.

Meeting with the Kasballica Mission at “The Dive”. Arranges to do a pickup for the Mission within 30 days. (since each day in warp transit is 12 days real time) Then to deliver it through the Maw to coordinates provided by the pickup.

The initial research into the Liege and what is traditional.
Clothing changes of the cast for formal situations.
Intro to the liege’s court.
Kalmen going all third eye on everyone.
Everyone reacting to a rogue trader who is also a Navigator.
Meeting with the liege
Finding of the three(known) psychers.
Meeting with “The Provisor” of the tutors. That went wonderfully. Now, I just need to remember the accent for next time.
Meeting with Vladaym Tocara of the Kasballica Mission.
Saw the old guy… Gonna have to go look at my notes again.

And then 500xp at the end for the last two sessions. I’m going to raise that to 750 since it really should be for 3 sessions. So 11000 xp total. Spend away.

At the beginning of the session, Torian is able to convince the people that no insult was intended and the group is escorted off the station and from the system. From there, a quick trip to Footfall is accomplished in roughly a day and a half in the warp.

However, the warp exit goes rather badly and the Luck transits out of warp in the middle of the station itself and on a collision course with the Macrostatue of the God-Emperor himself. The statue is a battleship sized structure tethered to the stone of footfall by voidsteel chains. The statue looks out over the unconquered stars of the Koronos Expanse.

Klaxons go off, the ship screams at the tortured reentry near a gravity well and Areidne tries to pull the ship from a collision course with the statue. I should have run this differently from how I did. I should have made Areidne succeed at three piloting checks in order to not hit the statue and each check gets you closer and closer to the statue. Each check would give you a +10 or a -10 to the next check based on numbers of successes. A good roll would have made the next roll easier and a bad roll… well… is bad. Anyway… Areidne is able to force the ship to come about before slamming into the God-Emperor and brings the ship to a stop. Targeting systems are aimed at the ship from many of the sides and a cacophony of voices blare out at you from the vox. Eventually, order descends and the Luck is told where to berth and Areidne starts the perilous journey to the Footfall Longshore. The trip there is touch and go with trying to avoid the anchored and tethered asteroids that make up Footfall but eventually she is able to bring the ship into berth.

From there, communication with the Vryce’s Watch is established and initial conversation doesn’t go well. Jeffers answers the vox and is initially very unbelieving of the that Kalmen is the holder of the Vryce Warrant of Trade. Once Torian assures Jeffers that everything is on the up and up, Jeffers is excited by the idea and welcomes Kalmen home. Kalmen arranges to go visit the manse by Guncutter.

Kalmen and military escort land in the Hangar bay of the Vryce’s Watch and Thale and Kalmen secure the cargo bay. Thale takes up positions around the airlock door and ready to head further into the manse.

The door begins to open and Jeffers starts to say “Welcome to your ancestral…” and then Thale and the security team are sweeping into the open airlock and securing the personnel.

Jeffers is an 85 year old man with a cybernetic arm and a cybernetic eye that takes up half his face. He is well presented in the Gold and Black of the original Vryce colors and looks quite startled at all the guns pointed at him and the three servants with him. He somewhat quickly regains his composure once the frisking is over with and the security detail continues it’s sweep of the area of the manse that are habitable. Once Thale mentions it, Jeffers pipes up and mentions that they shouldn’t go into any areas that are locked first without checking to see if the areas beyond are open to vacuum since there are areas of the manse that are in very poor shape and not safe to visit.

Jeffers offers to take Kalmen to dinner and is escorted to a presented meal.

Katie is given a name. Katie is the released slave that Kalmen acquired. She has three cybernetic implants that are found to be an increase in stamina, and reproductive prevention implants. The third is associated with her brain chemistry.

The ship is unable to be repaired since funds are unavailable, however, repairs using the in-house parts are able to proceed. Katie and three of the manse personnel are sent to train the families and personnel of the Luck on how Footfall works. Torian is looking for jobs and new workers for the manse.

Thale continues his search of the manse but eventually starts just securing the areas current under power and gravity. The rest of the manse is falling apart and not safe until repaired or at least shored up. Repair crews will have to be allocated for that to continue. I think I’ll turn this into a game. Create a layout of the manse and allocate a certain number of hull points per section and have them having to be repaired in order to bring that section back online and useful. Each section could have bonuses or just allow more personnel to live in the manse.

Another separate armsman squad takes up living at the manse and makes things a bit tight in the limited quarters that currently exist.

After the two weeks of repairs to the ship, a servoskull comes by with a message from Liege Tanthus Moross. The message is an invite to Court being held tonight at the palace of the Liege of Footfall.

The first portion of the night was finalizing characters and figuring out everyone wanted to do during the two months downtime of the warp storms fading

Kalmen looking over the information from Torian decides to head to Caliphas III-2 an old holding of the Dynasty that happens to be nearby.

The warp trip is surprisingly calm and quick. The baleful xenos machine of the Runecaster does it’s arcane magics and speeds Vryce’s Luck on it’s path.

Upon arrival… the group finds that Caliphas is no longer the system reported in the family records. The system itself matches the records, but the planet itself does not.

Initial contact with the current “owners” of Caliphas is by astropathic communication at the edges of the system. The initial communication is that the Vryce’s Luck is a ship in need of resupply and trade. The ship is met in system by smaller system ships and escorted to the Caliphas space station. The station itself is a trade port and Torian is able to trade your raw materials for food and medical supplies. Torian is able to get the Scourge dynasty agents to throw in an educated female slave as a taste of what they also supply. However, Torian also manages to royally piss off the staff and suddenly combat personnel show up around them and get ready to kill some rogue traders.

This post is for two weeks of sessions and will have an XP reward at the end…

Vryce’s Luck arrives at the ruin of Sanctuary to discover that the Vryce’s Gambit has become The Emperor’s Bane and is waiting for them in the debris field. A verbal sparing match goes on between Halia and Kalmen and then the fight begins… The Vryce’s Luck finds itself out maneuvered and after a bad thruster hit storms out past the ruins of the station to the lifters that are broadcasting SOS calls.

The Luck is able to find it’s way to the closest one and finds the lifter pilot a able pilot and addition to the crew. Other than the fact that she’s Zaminski’s sister and also possibly crazy. But a different crazy.

After that, next session the Luck returns to the fight and manages to give the Emperor’s Bane a sound thrashing. Much more so than intended. Grrrr The final volley from Thale sends the ship to it’s doom and breaches the warp core on the ship. Through able piloting, Vryce’s Luck is able to weather the tear in the materium that threatens to pull the ship to it’s doom. Emperor’s Bane is not so lucky and is utterly swallowed by the malevolent hell of the warp.

A salvage operation of Sanctuary continues but finds little to be happy with. The destruction of the station is near absolute. Pieces of the station and void frozen bodies rain against the hull of the Luck while the search continues.

Families on board the ship, when duties permit, search the expanding field for loved ones or even those known to them. They find little but further cause to weep.

A beacon from an outer moon calls the Luck to the surface where a unassuming hiding spot produces the Vryce Warrant of Trade as well as a holo recording of Kalmen’s father wishing him luck.

Over the course of the next two months… the warp storm recedes into memory and a strange shimmering and blinking starfield replaces it’s horror filled space. Bouts of agoraphobia run rampant in those born in the peculiar void that is Helios. Suddenly, the people of the world look up to no longer see the warp ceiling they are used to. The night sky is no longer purple and odd shades of colors that burn the eye to look at them.

Helios is irrevocably changed… but the dynasty is free again to ply it’s trade amongst the systems of the Koronus Expanse.

So, the formative portion of the game is over. This next game makes all large scale changes to the characters permanent. So think about what you want to do with the character and it is settled tonight. As a reward for surviving and finishing the first portion of the game… one Fate Point is awarded to all. Please record this on the character sheets. Also, a full 1000xp is awarded to all. Total XP is now 10250. Once it’s spent to 10k, this will put everyone at Rank 3 Rogue Traders. :)

Due to two gamers being absent, both Torian and Kalmen were in spock mode during the game. Not my favorite way of doing things and with the revelations from tonight I really didn’t want to skip it… but I kinda wanted Kalmen around for reasons to be seen later.
After the defeat of the slime worms (Of Ragnar Seven!), the group tracks back to the original Y intersection and heads north to the four way intersection. At the intersection, Lucian has Yorick scout out all three passages and finds that the westerly passage slopes down and curves north. The northern passage slopes down and the eastern passage slopes up and curves north.

After much discussion, Elina eventually snaps and says “The demon is that way just go to the demon!” The rest of the group agrees and the group heads down the northern passage.

The passage keeps heading down for at least a hundred meters and gets slippery the further down you go. Elina notices tracks in the sludge and several drag spots as well and hurries the group along. The group, however, can not go too fast without slipping and risking injury.

Eventually, the passage widens out into a large cavern maybe 3 meters in radius. Inside the cavern, closer to the far wall, are 3-4 glowing green patches of luminescence. Yorick, scouts out the cavern and comes across an image that strikes Lucian to the core and he calls the group forward but warns that they will not like what they see and to be ready against it.

Stepping forward, the group finds a irregular pit in the cavern floor with stalactites and stalagmites in it. The pool itself is full of the slight glowing slime and helps to support the grotesque bulks that resides in it. The six meter long body of a worm coils amongst the slime. The worm is of the same basic structure as the smaller ones that the group fought earlier but for two facets that bring fear to the heart. An arm and a leg protrude from the swollen body and lie back against the slime slicked body of the beast. They are vestigial and shrunken from the human limbs they used to be. Hidden against the body are the other arm and leg, but seen only as outlines in the bulk from where they have fuzed with the body. But worst of all is the mishapen face of a woman that stares out at you from the face of the beast. Marcella, sister to Kalmen and daughter to Geoff, lies in a slime pit from which her body can not escape.

“By the God Emperor”, Lucian intones and the warped mouth opens to speak. “The God Emperor had nothing to do with this Lucian. Where was the God Emperor when I called on his love and mercy?”

“What happened my sister?” asks Kalmen. She explains that she will tell all she knows if he will promise to give her the mercy of the god emperor. Kalmen agrees. Marcella tells the group about how it was Halia who had captured her and tried to twist her to the Dark Gods purpose but she resisted. Halia had been the one at the moon that Kalmen had investigated. Halia had been the one who corrupted her Bishop and used him to enact several of the rites for her Dark God. Halia had been the one to warp Jace to terror. After the game a discussion occurred about the hints that I’d placed. The group almost guessed it was Halia after Jace’s diary said “his sister” had done it but the group moved on from that subject and figured he must have meant Marcella.

Marcella asked that Kalmen stop Halia and keep his side of the bargain. Kalmen does so and kills Marcella with a long burst from his heavy bolter. Her body slumps back into the pool that had changed her. Discovered in the pool are four of the cultists bodies two of them with sacks. Kalmen pulls the sacks out of the goo telekinetically and opens them. Inside are organs and entrails.

Zaminski attempts to call The Luck but can’t reach the ancient ship above them. The group quickly heads back up to the entrance to the caverns and argues about how to best leave the planet. Zaminski takes charge and suggests a teleport and damn the guncutter. Kalmen eventually, voxes the guncutter and tells them to return to the ship and has the teleportarium transport them back to the ship.

Zaminski sends a message to Holyoak to be alert and to not allow Halia in the cathedral. Kalmen sends a message to his father about what they have found and turns the ship towards Sanctuary for the return trip and the handling of a sibling.

30 minutes into the trip back a little before the earliest communication back from the station would be expected, the auspex officer illustrates something on the viewscreen. A bright white light has flared into life in the outer solar syster. It flares, burns for several seconds and then dies. With a voice full of shock, the auspex crew says… “That was Sanctuary… The station… It’s gone!”

And we ended the game there… After game discussion spoke about the millions of inhabitants that lived on the station and how they are all dead. Holyoak, Fulsom and maybe Bishop Tarsus are all dead as well. The largest population of the solar system all dead. Luke had the horrified thought of “Maybe she’s using their souls as a summoning.” But that will get handled next week.

I’m not sure exactly the order for this next stuff. But I’ll get it down

Bishop Fisher stays onboard the Luck since the Gambit is off to gather Bishop Tarsus from Eos.

Kalmen talks to the Enginseer Prime on Sanctuary and arranges to have him remove the last copy of the video from cogitor array.

Torian gets the dirt on Holyoak and speaks with Fulsom in the market. He speaks with fulsom about what is going on with his flock and warns him about what’s been happening.

Kalmen decides that it’s better to be safe than sorry and has Elina mindsquidge Fisher. But Elina gets more than she bargained for and finds a hidden personality that wakes up at her probing. She starts to probe the second mind and finds it probing her back. She cuts the link and attacks Fisher. Fisher changes his hand into what looks like bone and attacks Kalmen. Kalmen and Elina together kill him and the body is disposed of quite quickly.

Kalmen alerts his father and halia to the issue. Geoff says that to get to the bottom of this “We’ll purge the whole damn church if we have to.” Halia regrets that her bishop was bad but is willing to put as many people to the flame as needed to protect Father.

At the end… Everyone goes to sleep and we wake to a new day. We’ve got a couple days left before Halia gets back with Bishop Tarsus.

Zaminksi begins the session with a monologue about how the Cardinal is a traitor and then ignites the poor man with both charges of his hand flamers.

Cardinal Dead Guy falls stories to the floor of the cathedral and bisects himself on the pews below in a flaming splooch.

Moments later Lucian falls to the floor clutching his arm and shouting “My Arm… My arm!” Several Acolytes arrive in the room to find a tech priest on the ground and an alive with passionate fervor Bishop standing over him framed by the slowly burning broken window. The acolytes stop stunned and stare at the pair. Bishop Holyoak arrives as Zaminski pronounces Lucian’s arm to be treasonous and cuts it off with his chainsword.

Holyoak commands Zaminski to tell him what in the name of the God Emperor is going on. Zaminski comments that “Good work in the name of the God Emperor is going on” and uses his remaining two charges to immolate the “treasonous” arm of Lucian. The fire suppression system goes off and coats everyone in the room in foam.

Holyoak takes charge, instructs Zaminksi to come with him and to bring the tech priest.

Zaminski voxes to Kalmen(who is on the luck’s live fire range. BUDDABUDDA) to teleport Lucian and himself out. Kalmen relays the instructions to the Teleportarium and they make a best guess and teleport out a large chunk of the Cathedral somewhere other than where Zaminski is.

The group in the Cardinal’s office hear the collapse of another section of the Cathedral and go to see what has happened. They find a large spherical hole has been ripped out of the Cathedral weakening this area of the station.

Lucian is escorted out of the cathedral and Zaminski head into the back offices with Holyoak. Holyoak yells at Zaminski. Zaminski rails at Holyoak. Much dislike of each other occurs. Zaminski is placed on something akin to Cathedral arrest. Zaminski is informed that a Conclave of Bishops will be occuring as soon as the Bishops can all gather and vote on two issues. Censuring of Zaminski and a new Cardinal. Lucian gets back to the Luck and proceeds to be very unhappy about missing an arm. Zaminski manages to convince the two acolytes set to guard him that he wants to go look for his “Aquila” pendent that he “left” in the cardinal’s chambers. They follow him and watch him as he “searches” the room.

Zaminski is able to contact Kalmen again, (“WHAT?!”) who has the Teleportarium crew lock onto his vox signal and transport the entire room and as much as it can to the luck. “In order to foil the recording systems.”

The Luck grabs yet another (larger) piece of the Cathedral and transports it through the warp and into the Teleportarium. Kalmen arrives with an armsmen crew to escort the survivors out of the wreckage. Zaminski and Lucian end up having a large argument about how Zaminski killed the Cardinal and that he’s lying to the Ecclesiasty.

A loud gasp brings the surrounding armsmen to the arguers attention and the stop talking so loud about things that might make them look in need of a promethium dip. Kalmen volunteers/promotes the armsmen that hear about the trouble to RedShirt Squad and sends them off to get “trained” with Thale. Thale is informed about the issue and welcomes the new meat shields.

About this time, Kalmen gets a call from Geoff about the complaints of Zaminski from Holyoak. Geoff inquires why the carefully selected Cardinal that Geoff put into place about 20 years ago has been killed by one of Kalmen’s people? Kalmen explains that Zaminski was making a power play and might be of some use. Geoff gives Kalmen enough rope and power to investigate and make things work for the family. Then the conversation ends… having “never taken place.”

Everyone is summoned by Kalmen into a conversation about how to solve this mess. Elina mentions that she can brain squidge people now and Zaminski is brought in for questioning. Elina proves Zaminski’s loyalty to the group and is freed of being a traitor but some believe him to still be a danger. Plans are discussed and Torian brings up the idea that the Bishops are all human and therefor can be controlled as such. Holyoak might need to be removed but the others can be bribed or blackmailed. So how to get the information from them.

Kalmen uses that authority(At Torian’s urging) to summon the Bishops that are local to a dinner as a way of showing that the Family is working to help them and show things are still good. Holyoak says he’s got some fine entertainment for the dinner. Holyoak, Fulsom and Fisher(the bishop from the Gambit) are invited to dinner. All of the command crew and important people on the ship are invited to the dinner. Thale is at his most uncomfortable in a formal uniform and without armor or weapons. At the dinner, Lucian is excused since he’s recovering from arm surgery and Zaminski is purposefully excluded. The dinner goes well until Kalmen can excuse himself from the dinner and leave the schmoozing to Torian. Elina proceeds to silently brain slurp Holyoak and Bishop Fulsom(the other Bishop of the station). Holyoak is a sex fiend and Fulsom has fire issues. Fulsom is also there just to watch the fight between holyoak and zaminski and is kinda disappointed that it isn’t going to happen. So Holyoak can be blackmailed pretty easy but Fulsom is a good priest and follower of the God Emperor. Although, he mentions that he’s worried about his flock. They seem distant recently.

But the most important thing that Elina bring up is that Holyoak does have proof that Zaminski killed the Cardinal and did it on purpose. He has a copy on himself, one in his rooms and another on the cogitor it was originally recorded on. Elina excuses herself, heads to bridge to inform the captain and get away from the meal.

Kalmen plans a distraction with zaminski coming into the meal as Holyoak is going to show his dataslate. Kalmen will then use his distraction to steal, edit and then return his dataslate before Zaminski is escorted out. Thale happily leaves the dinner and escorts Zaminski out as well. Holyoak attempts to play his video of Zaminski for the Rogue Traders representative but can’t find it. Surprise Surprise.

Desert arrives and it’s Eotian Jellied Eels and Elina is sent out to go assist Thale with the recovery of the copy in Holyoak’s apartment. Elina is a little miffed and takes the plate of Jellied Eotian Eels with her much to Torian’s chagrin.

Torian, however, takes the bishops on a “tour of the luck… first stop… yeast reprocessing.” And Thale and Elina head out to remove the bishops copy of things.

They are able to get the copy but leave evidence that they were there in the process. Also, they maybe scare a couple priests on the way.

Three sessions have gone by.
Short session where Lucian dropped the blade and likely saved his life.
Battle with Jace and the reclamation of his body.
Autopsy of Jace and Zaminski’s move on the Ecclesiarchy.

Short session… No real challenge for the group. 100xp
Battle with Jace… Meh Challenge but not over all. 250xp.
Zaminski and Jace dissection. 150xp.

Game was very short because we had a decent number of missing people. Couple people who were injured were healed. Fate points were not used for healing. It was a kinda meh night.

However, dun dun dun!!!! Lucian grabbed the blade and warned with the spirit inside for his very soul. Kalmen attempts to push the blade out of Lucian’s grasp but the strength of his telekinesis is too weak. Elina is too distracted and doesn’t notice anything amiss. Zaminski is unconscious but practically wills his slowly drowning form to sacrifice himself over Lucian. Thale simply knows that if Lucian goes bad he’ll get gunned down and therefor does nothing. In the end, no one can prevent Lucian from grasping the blade.

The feel of the blade is like a warm inviting mothers hug. The voice that welcomes him home is a voice he’s heard before. The voice from the book encounter on the moon thanks him for the sacrifice of his body and welcomes him into the arms of Grandfather. Lucian tries to resist but the warm comforting feel of rot, slime and pestilence surround him and wrap in a delightful crushing embrace. The loving, happy appeal of lying down and surrendering to the kind invading tendrils of fungus and the gentle maws of maggots fills Lucian and he gives in to the joy of decay.

Lucian opens his eyes for one last time and he sees the flesh and technology of his arm warping, shifting and rippling into the same night-black leathery skin of the demon that had wielded it before. He looks down in horror at what is becoming of his body and feels the alien mind moving his own mind and soul out of his body and whispers a quiet prayer to the Omnissiah.

The prayer gives Lucian a moment of peace and a chance to gather his strength. With a prodigious effort, Lucian manages to throw the blade a way and force the foreign intellect out of his head… (Burns a fate point. The effects of demonic possession are bad bad bad…)

From there the blade is left where it dropped, Zaminski wakes up later and the injured area healed. Zaminski pulls aside his armor to find the demon’s blade had ripped right through his flesh. The edges of the wound are necrotic and blackened. The filth of the sewer system has soaked into his chest piece and run merrily through the wound. The filter blocking the path back is cut through. Everyone heads back into the main room with the agitators. The group receives a vox from Halia. Halia has lost a good number of her men but she’s trapped Jace in another area. Kalmen is to come quickly before Jace is able to escape.

Since Kalmen was a brain-dead NPC at the time, we called the night there. (Way way early. Where oh where had our Friar gone… Where oh where could he have been?)

Game ended with two of the crew badly damaged, several of the armsmen dead and the slow stench and rot of the place seeping into the bones of the people in the filth. Some people need MASSIVE amounts of antibiotics. :)

Ok, so last gaming session was good. People had fun and much fighting was had. No real social encounters to be had yet but definitely could have been worse. So XP for the one session? Madness you say. But XP none the less.

550xp for the one session. One tough fight plus another meh fight. Two encounters. Although, I might fudge the numbers in other fights differently.

(I was very happy to be able to get through two combats in one night. Both combats were somewhat big so I’m happy with them. I think we’re getting faster with this kinda stuff. So on the the synopsis.)

The fight starts in the larger aeration room as roughly 60 humanoid shapes rise out of the muck and attack. The first blast from the PC group reveals that there isn’t the correct fuel-air ratio for a large scale explosion in the room. (Nobody failed their d30 luck roll so no boom.)

The fight consisted mostly of the large group of guys rushing at the PC’s and support crew and getting chewed up by gun fire. A couple managed to get into hand to hand combat with the rest of the group and managed to hit Kalmen pretty hard. (I’m working from memory here so correct as needed in comments) Although, Kalmen ended up not taking that much damage from the hit.

Eventually the group is defeated and the room is explored. Elina detects two demonic presences to the north and south. The group splits up to investigate and the Kalmen leads the group north.

The group passes through a larger opening in the sewer system that seems meant to process large amounts of waste. The terrain remains difficult but acceptable. The group continues down the pipe until behind them they hear a loud metal clang behind them. The sound is momentarily followed by an echoing noise. Elina is able to see the large filter that has slide into place across the waste pipe. The group falls back to find out what it was and discovers a large filtering system has slide into place over the mouth of the pipe they are in.

Elina’s pushed psi-blade is able to damage the filter and will likely be used to cut their way out. Halia communicates over the vox that she’s had the same thing happen on her side and that for the moment she’s ok. A wild croaking ululation is heard behind the group and they turn to find a group of beasts have approached behind them while they were distracted with the destruction of the filter.

There are roughly 10 quadruped beasts that charge the group. They are strongly muscled with maws full of teeth and rush at the armsmen and PCs. Among the charge is another tall creature of dark flesh. It’s almost 3 meters tall and it’s leathery skin writhes as if it’s muscles moved underneath the skin. It is wield a jet black sword that shimmers in the fetid air of the pipe.

The fight is nasty and three armsmen are eaten by the quadrupeds before they are brought down. While Elina goes toe to toe with the larger demon she is shot in the back by a stray round from Thale. The round blows out the armor of her center torso destroying it while reducing her to a ragged shell of herself. (Spidey brought up the idea that missing shooting into a melee by certain amounts should allow those rounds to hit other people. So we did, and Thale hit Elina for roughly 24 points of damage from righteous fury. It was not a good night for Elina. The critical effect also destroys that area of her armor blowing out the torso of her snazzy new body armor.) Zaminski managed to piss off the monster by doing a quite nice hit with his flamer and drew it’s wrath. Most of the demon’s attacks missed and those who dodged heard it screaming through the air where they had been moments before. However, the beast doggedly pursues Zaminski and manages to score a hit with his demon blade before being vanquished. The blade proves to be an immaterial blade and passes right through Zaminski’s armor inflicting massive damage to the Bishop. (Zaminski is at -5 wounds and 4 levels of fatigue)

The fight comes to a stop and people take a moment to breath. Kalmen begins to survey the scene and notices Lucian wrap his arm in cloth and go to pickup the demon’s blade before it sinks into the muck. Kalmen screams a warning as Lucian’s fingers grasp the hilt of the blade.

(And we called the game done there. “You’re done!” We’ll pickup next session with the after math of the picking up the blade. Lucian has already failed a willpower check before Kalmen gave him a possible out by scanning the room with his warp sight. But we’ll see how it goes.)

(Important, that last fight was tough and the fight before it was moderately tough… so I’ll give out exp for the one night.)

So everyone shows up to tomorrow with an idea of what they want to do with it. I’m giving out an additional 750 xp to account for the last three gaming sessions.

So everyone will be at a total of 6500 xp. Since everyone was at 5750 xp, once the spent xp crosses over 6000 then people can start buying from Rank 2. Leaving about 500 xp for rank 2 abilities. :)

UPDATE Spidey has correctly pointed out that I am wrong. Rank 2 isn’t actually until 7000 xp. So no Rank 2 abilities should be taken. He, however, has requested that you be given 1000xp free in order to make up for my screw up. Due to his unwavering dedication to the Emperor, I have decided to grant his request… You will all be receiving 1000xp more at some point in the future… probably in about 3 or 4 sessions.

Scott, since I know you had purchased some rank 2 updates, you’ll need to back those out and either save the xp or buy something else with it.

I know that some of the Rank 1 charts are running out of things to take. Worst case increase a couple attributes.

Matthew: Well, basically what happened was the group pulled out of the room and Thale did a vox request for more armsmen to land from another guncutter and to take the wounded and casualties back to the ship for proper handling.
as part of that, Kalmen got a message from the Luck saying that Bishop Ziminski has been informed that there are heretical things going on and that he requests to come down and investigate with the group. (ie the new character)
He’s a missionary whose been the bishop for the luck for about 5 years now.
The gun cutter came down… dropped off more men and picked up the wounded. and aquila lander dropped off Bishop Zaminski…
While they were waiting on the guncutters they head a metalic bang or clanging noise coming from the left door…
they assembled the crew and listened at the door. it wasn’t a regular mechanical noise so they opened the door and found a survivor.
He had a metal bed leg in his hand and was filthy and disgusting… He was sent off with the wounded and the room was checked. nothing in the room. but icky.
The stench was nearly overpowering. then they opened the right door which had the blood stain spreading from it… when they opened it up Lucian and Kalmen and you were able to resist the toughness check they had from the stench of the room… the armsmen and Thale failed…
they all ended up puking their guts out.
in the room was a soup of bodies and as soon as the door opened the soup began to ooze in a chunky fashion into the room.
at least 30 bodies in states of decay in the room… nasty nasty.
they sent the skull in to investigate and closed the door to stop the stink…

Ziminski got there around this time… went into the room where the fight was and requested to see the bodies of his flock… Nobody in the room was happy to open the door but they needed to get the skull back and might as well show him.
Zaminski made his test and unleashed a cone of cleansing fire into the room from a flamer built into his armor.
Next the group decided to open the door to the central room and the door opened to reveal an altar made of dark stone. Similiar to the one found under the moon of the Emperor’s eye but built by different species. Floating above the altar was a green mist or gas that defied the laws of physics and didn’t settle to a lower space.

Kalmen looks into the warp and notes that the room is tainted and the taint is spreading towards the door. The skull is sent in to investigateand zaminksi notices the green gas move to pursue the skull.

Zaminski mentions this and calls to the luck for an orbital strike on this location. Kalmen agrees but only on his order. Lucian has recovered much of the weapons used by the baddies and stored them in the APC.
Kalmen calls for a pickup from two guncutters and Lucian and thale stay with the Chimera in case of trouble.
When zaminkshi was sent down Kalmen asked for a pilot that would know how to pilot the chimera and he was sent down with the priest as well.
The first gun cutter lands and picks up most of the ground crew and then the second guncutter lands and picks up the Chimera and the rest of the ground crew.
The guncutter that was sent back first with the wounded has been put into quarantine due to the one wounded survivor.

Once the group is clear of the strike zone the lance strike is called for… A blazing pillar of light strikes down from the heaven with the intensity of the core of the sun… The atmosphere and wind kick up from the heat and debris blown into the sky… a 1 km circular area has been burned into the surface of the planet and a large scale fire and devestation was created around that.
impact zone. Everyone gets to the ship safely, Kalmen goes to the bridge to message his father.
you are sent to watch the survivor for corruption.
Ziminski goes to his cathedral to lookinto things and lucian begins to clean up the chimera and the bolters.

Somewhere in here Elina goes and cleans up and tries to get the goo out of her pores.

Kalmen sends his message and then stops by the Cathedral to see if Ziminski still wants to interogate the survivor… They both head off to the quarantine zone. A section of the barracks has been temporarily repurposed to a quarantine and they find him there… They eventually done void suits and head in to talk to the man. Elina up to this point hasn’t noticed anything odd about him and no corruption. The medical staff say he’s cooperated and not been resistant.
They ask him his name, what he was doing there and if he’d heard or seen Kalmen’s sister.
He says his name is johnathan and then tells a rambling crazy talk story about his imprisonment in the bunker. He was grabbed on the Gambit in the lower levels and was in the bunker for an untold amount of time. He can’t keep track… He is constantly refering to his companion in the bunker and signs point to the fact that he’s talking about the body that was found in the room with him.
He heard not too long ago shouting and screaming. A new female voice came in and was proclaming the blessing of the empreror and asking for help in defeating evil.
then johnathan heard “the priest” say that “we have a use for this one…” and then the woman started screaming.
ziminksi immediately jumped on the priest idea and starts asking who and what he was… Johnthan gives a ramlbing description of the few times he’s seen him when bringing in or picking up captives from the room.
Kalmen has been watching johnathan and noticed a slight mist like tainted rising from the skin of the man… almost like the steam from a warm body on a frosty day…
The level of the steam seems to rise and change with the emotions of the man…
Ziminski has to calm johnathan at least once in order for him to become lucid again and get all of the information out.

After awhile, Ziminski grabs the man around the throat and pins him to a wall insiting he answer if he worships a false emperor.
The man immediately panics, rambles on about not again and locks up.
Zaminski, who had grabbed a hypo earlier in the session, tranqs the man and lays him down on the bed…
Kalmen has noticed the taint has gotten worse and is now worse than when they started it all. Ziminski looks saddened but knows he what he must do and giving the blessings of the emperor he commends the mans soul into the hands of the emperor. He uses the hypo give him an overdose of tranqs and kills him.
Kalmen and Ziminski discuss what to do now and they arrange to have the body autopsied and the autopsy done by one of Ziminski’s priests.

Father Ted finds that the ex-survivor had not a trace of food or any sustenance in his digestive track. Something had to be sustaining him or he’d have died long before this point.

Kalmen returns to his room and goes to bed. Same as Elina and thale. Lucian who “is more resistant to sleep” stays up awhile later.
Kalmen is woken by a return message from his father that speaks of Kalmen being careful and that Halia has arrived at the Gambit and found Jace to not be there.

Kalmen goes back to sleep… Lucian continues his work for a bit and then goes to sleep after procuring three samples of the goo that was on the weapons and elina.
Ziminski goes to sleep after starting to research in the lucks archives about the cult and anything else of concern.
Game called when they all woke up at roughly the same time.

Elina also bathed at some point during this time to get the goo off of her… But she feels very warm and not remotely well.

The Ripper-Whips and Osdex lie dead… Their mangled bodies bleed into the moist jungle floor. And that’s about all the flavor your going to get today. :)

The group heads up the path and finds itself at an Imperial bunker. This must be what the Luck detected from orbit. The bunker is of a standard template. The blast door is beat up and gouged as if from large claws of bladed weapons.

Lucian tries to determine from the claws about how long ago the door was attacked. Lucian also attempts to access the bunkers surveillance systems from outside. Quite a bit of discussion later, Elina goes over and tries to open the door. The door is locked but Lucian is able to get it open.

Inside, there is something of a motorpool with mechanical equipment and an Chimera in the corner. The group moves in and shuts the door behind them. Lucian asks Kalmen if the Dynasty could use a vehicle like that. Kalmen agrees and Lucian runs off to start and to take the APC.

Eventually, Lucian is able to get the APC running but all the noise the group has been making has given the enemies in the next room time to plan and get ready. About the time Lucian gets the Chimera started, the door into the next room slides open and two grenades come bouncing into the room. They explode on the tightly packed group of armsmen that had been clustered there for when the group would go through the door.

Inside the next room is around 12 people of disperate uniforms and classes and styles. They are united in the defense of the bunker. There is no one person who appears to be the leader.

The battle runs into the next room while Lucian attempts to bring the heavy bolter into play by trying to move the Chimera close to the door. Kalmen, Elina and the armsmen battle into the other room. Lucian gets the chimera going but only in a straight line directly at Elina. Elina manages to acrobatically flip her way out of the APC and into the other room.

By the time Lucian brings the APC to a stop and gets into the gunnery chair, the battle has moved beyond the firing arc of the Chimera. Before too long, with Thale, Kalmen and Elina in the front the group of traitorous cultists are put down.

Game ends there. Even for the short amount of time… it really seems to have gone WAY long.

Which way did she go?

The group starts of in the ransacked quarters of the Captain of the Luck. Marcella has been captured and the kidnappers look to have gotten away by teleportarium. (Note, I am correcting my mistake with Psynescience in that it can’t detect things from orbit with a moon and a km straight down through rock. My Bad)

Kalmen leads the crew from Marcella’s chambers and back to the bridge of the Luck and has the Vox Officer send a vox to Geoff on Sanctuary with a warning and a request for conversation. The vox officer leans into his work.

Lucian suggests that we have the auger arrays do sweeps of the planet while Lucian uses the internal augers to search the ship for alien or irregular life signs. Elina is pressed into service to search the ship for signs of warp intrusion using Psynescience. While still on the bridge, Kalmen assist her in her checks but send Elina off with a security team to do a cursory check of the ship. Lucian, using the internal augers, assists Elina in her search in locating groups of crew, tribes of families and the small sub ship groups that exist on a ship the size of the Luck. (There was some discussion at this point about the size of the ship and the real number of inhabitants that live on it. Spidey was under the impression that it was maybe a couple thousand and hadn’t yet gotten the shear enormity of void ships in this gaming universe. The Luck is the size of a small hive city. About 3km by 2km x 2km… A HUGE volume of space that can be populated by family and crew.) Elina is greeted by some suspicion but the security escort prevents the ratings or crew from approaching her. Elina notices some members of the crew looking at Thale but not approaching when they noticed the Astropath.

Kalmen gets a response back from his Father and starts a time delayed conversation that ranges across the moon base and the altar, back to the safety of Kalmen’s father as well as Geoff’s request for Kalmen to look after himself. Jace is currently unavailable on the Gambit and Kalmen is worried what that may mean. Geoff discusses that finding Kalmen’s sister is Kalmen’s top priority. Eventually, about four hours later Geoff mentions that he’s sending Orthesian to the Vryce’s Luck and Halia, Kalmen’s younger sister, to the Gambit to check in and assume command if necessary.

Elina returned from her search of the ship having cover a tiny fraction of the ship in the four hours she was gone but being “fairly” certain that there aren’t any warp incursions in the ship currently. The Etherics officer on duty is getting some auger returns from the coordinates of the teleport but would like to have the helmsman move the ship into a different orbit over the coordinates for better information. Kalmen authorized the move and the Helmsman makes it so.

The hulking void ship swings around to hang over the coordinates and finds a metal bunker hiding amongst the foliage of the central continent of the death world Eos. Kalmen tells Thale to prepare a landing team and to get a guncutter on standby on fly over. Kalmen decides it’s time to look into getting some armor more fitting of a heir to the House of Vryce and looks for armor for himself and his immediate cohorts.

We spent a pretty massive amount of time here looking up the acquisition rules and eventually managed to get 5 suits of enforcer light carapace for the group. Since then I’ve looked into the rules more and found I like it better after chatting with people online. I can’t link the forum post here… but I’ll try to get it showing up here if I can.*)

After getting the armor and suiting up and getting ready for the teleport down to the coordinates… the group drops down through the screaming horrors of the warp through a short teleport trip and arrives… into gaming problems…

(*we spent also way too much time trying to find the best way to work the map of the drop zone in maptools. My sexy sweet map took a long time to upload to the remote players but once they got it they were ok. But then the ranges looked weird and the tokens were tiny and if you got a decent range on the map then it was hard to see the tokens. Yeesh. Also showed them the Dark Heresy Maptools Framework I found recently. I’ll be moving to that when I get a chance. but since I’ve got the maps current in it’s own campaign. Not so much now. *)

With technology figured out… The group lands and starts to look around and several of the local fauna are attracted to the scent of meat and the sound of voices. An osdex and a thornback(the lizardy thing) come of the trees to attack.

A viscous battle between the player group and the flora and fauna of Eos erupts. More osdex are attracted to the sounds of battle and the smell of blood. Elina users her unclean psyker gift to throw bolts of force at the beasts but disrupts the warp around her causing a hideous warp darkness to descend upon the party several times. This darkness gives the Osdex who hunt by smell as well as sight a bit of an advantage which they take careful advantage of. A ripper-whip that was nearby shuffles onto the scene and uses it’s whipvines to great effect killing three armsmen and injuring a fourth. The osdex end up killing a couple guards as well before the combined firepower puts down all attackers.

The maleficent will guiding the hungry beasts melted away under the assault of lasgun, bolter and hellgun. Four armsmen were dead and partially consumed. Two more were injured but still able to do the God-Emperor’s work. Lucian, the Tech-Priest was bleeding heavily.

The group pauses a moment for another assault to appear but none comes. Thale orders a few members of the armsmen to move the bodies onto the elevator for return from this hellish place. Raltus, the medic, tends to the injured and is able to suture some of the wounds closed.

Kalmen orders the group forward towards the dias using the light of one of the data slates to guide the group.

One of the armsmen begins to recite a verse of the Litany of Battle as the group moves towards the alien tomb on the dias. “We are the Emperor’s. We stand in his light to push back the darkness. We are his. We strike into the darkness to bring his light. We are his!” A few others quietly pick up the chant.

The dias is made of a dark stone that looks to have fused with the floor of the cavern. It looks as if floor has grown up into the stone of the dais and the dark stone of the dais has flown into lighter brown stone of the tomb.

The tomb itself is covered with pictographs and symbols of an alien and twisted nature. Runes carved into the stone twist and writhe in the faint light of the dataslate. A blink and the runes are solid again, their alien shapes holding meaning for eon long gone.

Elina stops the movement towards the tomb for a moment to say that the area has a faint warp echo and that the whole area is warp changed. Elina also notices two sections of the cavern wall that are rough and ragged looking. Kalmen nods and urges the group forward.

Kalmen, Elina and Lucian move around in front of the dais and find a set of low deep steps carved into the dark stone in front of the dais. One of the rough patches on the walls is directly in front of the steps and upon closer inspection looks to have been some kind of passageway or tunnel leading away from the cavern and to other areas of the moon. Someone notices a depression worn into the rock underneath the fallen rocks of the tunnel. Pointing it out, one of the armsmen says it looks much like depressions that years of the faithful have worn into the steps up to the shrine of the God-Emperor on Eos and shivers at the comparison.

Kalmen steps up to the tomb on the daiz and find it to be about three meters by 9 meters and about a meter deep. The cover of the tomb is open in the middle and the sections to either side of the opening are covered in writing or pictographs of some kind.

Kalmen, Lucian and Elina all hear the voices slightly louder in their head and insistent.

Inside the tomb are crystal and stone bones of an alien shape and size. They shine a faint glimmering blue in the wan light of the dataslate. The rest of the tomb is hollow and filled with more of the bones. In the center of the bones is an empty spot about 10cm by 20cm and roughly rectangular.

The taint of the place creeps along the spine of those nearby and Kalmen tells Elina to destroy the tomb. Elina steps forward and brings her psi-blade down with all her might. Immediately upon the impact of the psi-blade on stone, Lucian cries out in agony and half crumples to the floor. The voices are screaming in his mind, overwhelming. They tear and shriek and rend at his mind.

Kalmen orders everyone back to the elevator and to leave. Thale signals several armsmen to grab Lucian and bring him along and the group hurries back to the elevator and begins the long trip back to the world above.

Lucian comes back to himself about halfway up the elevator shaft while Thale, Elina and Kalmen are discussing what to do with the tomb. Lucian has a headache but doesn’t seem to have any other side effects and Elina nods to Kalmen that Lucian is clean.

Severine, the demolitions person, mentions that she remembers the Guncutter has a supply of chemical explosives that could be used to destroy the tomb. Kalmen agrees that this sounds like a good idea and once they get to the top will send Elina, Severine, Raltus and another armsmen back down to the cavern. Elina is being sent down because she is the most trained in resisting this type of influence and most likely to be able to help the others.

The elevator finally ascends to the first floor of the base and the group starts to think of leaving. Lucian realizes that his void suit is destroyed and so are those of the two injured armsmen. A quick search of the base reveals no extra voids suits, and particularly none that would fit the inhuman frame of the tech-priest. Over the vox, Kalmen has the armsmen guarding the control center retreat back to the guncutter and sends Thale with the rest of the armsmen to get out of their void suits and bring them back for the two injured men. Lucian is given the six useless suits to use to try to fix his own so that it can survive the short trip through the vacuum of the lighter bay. Through what must be Omnissiah blessed effort, Lucian completes a repair that would be the envy of the Masters of Mars.

Elina and group are sent back down to destroy the tomb while the rest of the group prepares to leave. The long trip back down into the pit goes slowly and the oppressive weight of the rock all around presses down on the spirits of the few humans returning to the benighted spaces below. Scarcely before the elevator comes to a stop, a pressure of something begins to press against their minds. Elina feels the touch of something… other… slither across the edges of her mind… probing for a weakness… Searching for a way in. The others with her look nervous and distracted when she looks around her.

Once the elevator touches down, the small group presses forward into the eerie glow that surrounds the dais and its gristly treasure within. They quickly run to the tomb and Severine begins placing the explosives in the hollow set into the bones. With a 13 minute trip in the elevator and the time spent cycling the airlocks, She sets the timer for 20 minutes and begins the clock. She shouts out “Twenty minutes” and the light touch on their minds becomes a hammer of force slamming into the feeble protections of the human minds. Elina beats back the intrusion into her mind and shouts for the others to follow her and turns back to the elevator.

Halfway there Elina looks around sees that Severine is not with the others and turns back to the tomb. Severine is reaching back into the tomb with a blank look on her face and seems to be doing something with the explosives. Elina immediately Compels Severine to stop while Elina and the armsmen rush back to the dais. Elina Compels Severine to run towards the elevator and follows along behind her keeping herself and the other armsmen between the controlled woman and the dais. The group manages to make it back onto the elevator with 19 minutes left on the timer. Raltus and the other armsmen bind the struggling Severine in plastic cord and leave her on the floor of the elevator for the slow trip up.

The screaming and pressure in the minds of the demolition party eases the further up the shaft the group gets. At the top of the shaft, the armsmen grab Severine and carry her along with them as they make their way out of the base and into the guncutter. With the explosives set, the airlocks and other doors seem disastrously slow.

But the group gets to the Guncutter and signals the pilot to take off. Severine is strapped into one of the six seats in the front of the guncutter then the armsmen return to their own seats in the hold. Kalmen looks curiously at Elina and back to Severine. Elina mentions that she had been controled but seems fine now. Kalmen looks into the warp and confirms that there seems to be no lasting warp taint on the armsman.

The guncutter bursts out of the hangar into Helios’ light and retreats some fair number of kilometers from the mouth of the hangar and waits for the timer to finishes it’s countdown to detonation. The dust and debris plume from the hangar shows when the explosion occurs.

Kalmen orders the pilot to return to above the moon and orders the gunner’s to destroy the warehouse containing the cold chambers. The gunners warm up the auto-cannons and rip open the ceiling of the warehouse exposing the horrors within to the vacuum of space and the fury of an Emperor Blessed auto-cannon. When Kalmen is satisfied the gunner stop their destruction of the warehouse and Kalmen orders the return back to the Vryce’s Luck. Lucian looks over at the ammo counters and shudders at the amount of nearly impossible to replace auto-cannon rounds spent. Then he thinks of the cleansing of the Heretek abominations and is content.

The trip back to the Luck is quiet and Severine is freed to return to her post after both Elina and Kalmen say she’s clear of taint. The pilot continues to try to raise the Luck on the vox but can’t get a response back until a small time from the Luck. Kalmen asks to have his sister meet him for a debriefing when he arrives and the Bridge Crew says that she’s not on duty at the moment but they will find her and deliver the message before he arrives.

The guncutter enters the hangar bay and touches down. The armsmen debark and Thale says to Kalmen that they will take care of their dead and that it was a pleasure working with him.
Lucian checks in quickly with his underlings and ensures that the auto-cannons are reloaded before they need the guncutter again.

Elina and Lucian follow Kalmen to the bridge to find his sister. But upon reaching the bridge Kalmen finds that no-one has seen his sister in hours.

Kalmen assumes control of the ship until such time as his sister can return to command and orders a shipwide search for the lost Captain. He orders to be taken to his sister’s chambers and two of the bridge’s guards lead him to her chamber.

Outside Marcella’s chamber, Kalmen presses the door chime and gets no answer from within and then tries to open the door and it refuses. Lucian steps forward and begins to work on the door controls. A few moments go by and the door slides open and light from the hallways spills into the quarters of the Captain.

The quarters has been wrecked. The lights on the ceiling are hanging from their wires and there are turned over furniture all over the carpeted floor. Two large bloodstains bracket the door. Stepping inside the group finds evidence of weapons fire on the inside wall of room. The door controls have taken a hit and is probably the reason why the doors didn’t open.

The antechamber leads into Marcella’s bedroom and more blood is found there. A turned over table seems to have been the place that she took cover in when her attackers came for her. Behind the table is evidence of a struggle but no blood.

Lucian orders his subordinates over the vox to check auspex records on the hallway outside and any servitors that were in the area.

Kalmen checks with the bridge to ask for any communications that Marcella had recently and finds that Geoff Vryce left her a message recently. Kalmen plays it using the holotank in the room.

The message is a holographic version of Kalmen’s fathers torso and head and a spoken message. Geoff tells Marcella about his concern for Jace. He doesn’t seem to be himself recently and has gotten moody and quick to temper. He asks Marcella to keep an eye on her brother and to tell Geoff if she notices any further changes. Geoff also comments on the mission that Kalmen is on. Geoff mentions how he’s glad to have something for Kalmen to do and to start getting some experience working outside of the Navigator Pit. He asks to be kept informed as to the results of the expedition and informed about how Kalmen did. Suggestions for the next task for his youngest son would also be appreciated. Geoff says his goodbyes and the transmission ends.

Kalmen tells Lucian go secure the teleportarium incase she is still on the ship and orders a lockdown on the rest of the ship.

Lucian heads to the teleportarium and finds the customary guards and the tech priests assigned to the teleportarium dead and the teleportarium used somewhat recently. About three hours before.

(Thus is where we ended. I’m thinking of not allowing Common Lore: War to be a forensics skill anymore. It’s not really what it’s meant to be. It’s more of history or war and such. Oh, well. Live and learn.)

Agh! The screaming!

Having mostly explored the three rooms across from the warehouse, the group heads to the down elevator that they had seen on the holo-tanks from the command center.

Kalmen tells the pilot of the guncutter to send a message to the Luck informing them of our status and looking for a response. The pilot asks exactly what the Master wants sent and to whom? Kalmen sends back to vox a message exclusively for the captain (Marcella) and tell her what has happened up to that point.

Kalmen also informed the Armsmen in the command center to be alert to the servitors possibly going rogue. The gunners on the guncutter are also told to stay at high alert and pay close attention to the door leading to the warehouse and the things in the coldtanks.

The door into the elevator wing of the level is industrial and fitting for a blast door on a void ship. Armsmen wait in the void as the airlock cycles and the Yorick is sent in to scout the area. The group cycles into the airlock once Yorick gives the all clear. At the corner of the path, Yorick stops and waits for the rest of the group to cycle into the corridor. Yorick is then sent into the elevator room to scout the room.

The elevator room is square with a central hole dug striaght down into the floor with the elevator set into the hole. The elevator itself is a scaffold style elevator with the Adeptus seals and Imperial Aquila carved into the rails and elevator posts. There is a single call button. The elevator car is floored with a small hole grating that none the less looks like it can hold a sizable weight. There is a panel with three unlabeled buttons attached to one of the panels of the car. The car itself is lit with two small lights on the roof of the car.

The room is full of mining equipment. Plasma cutters, laser drills and grind heads lay about the chamber in disarray. The mining scaffold lies to one side of the shaft. There is a large scale tracked vehicle in one corner.

Lucian thinks on the profitability of any of this material and if the group could use the tracked vehicle as cover or mobility. The answer to both of these questions ends up being a no.

There is some fear about the possibility of the equipment mover causing problems so it is moved into the destroyed hangar.

Next Yorick is sent down in the elevator to scout the depths below. Yorick has an effective range of about 100m(This might change) and is sent to investigate what happens when button 2 is pressed.

The elevator falls away into the hollow dark of the moon with a juddering moan. Moments pass and the elevator comes to a creaking halt about 60 m below the current level.

Looking down the group can see the dim glow of lights down the bottomless darkness of the shaft.

With the lights in the chamber lit, the servo skull is able to make out the cerimite and steel walls and floor of a chamber with exits in each cardinal point. North and East have human size doors while the south door is an industrial size door. The west exit is an open hallway that leads off to a metal corridor that continues beyond range of the auspex. Yorick presses button one and the elevator ascends back to the upper level.

From the time it takes to travel the elevator is estimated at around 2m/s and Lucian sends the elevator back down with Yorick set to record. After about 50 seconds the signal from Yorick cuts out and Lucian presses the call button on the upper level.

5 minutes later the elevator has still not returned… 10 Minutes later… 20 minutes later…]

At about 23 minutes later the elevator returns but without the servo skill. Some traces of later insects is found on the elevator but no servo skull.

The entire group of 15 armsmen, Kalmen, Lucian, Elina and Thale get on the elevator and someone presses button 2. The elevator descends into the dark. The stone walls of the shaft press in around the group while the elevator skips and creaks its way down the walls of the shaft.

The group arrives on the 2nd floor and Thale has the Armsmen spread out to cover the room with a small group positioned around Kalmen.

Kalmen instructs them to open and clear the north door. The north door iris’ open and several armsmen step inside and pronounce the hallway clear. The hallway itself has probably 12 doors in it. six doors to each side. The look very similar to the doors in the brig of the Luck. Kalmen has the armsmen proceed down further down the hall while the group comes into the hallway.

One of the armsmen says “sir, you might want to see this.” and points through the open grate of one of the doors. Kalmen steps up to the door and looks in. Inside, he sees four or five bodies strewn about the cell. Each body has several wounds on them. Most likely to be some kind of weapon wound.

Lucian hears a low moan coming from further down the hall and proceed down to the end and looks in the grate. He seems four bodies on the ground with one of them making the low moaning and moving about. The body seems to have taken 4 wounds sometime in the past and the blood lies all around on the floor.

The door is opened up and Kalmen sends Elina in to find out what happened and interrogate the survivor. Elina steps in with four armsmen as escort and Delude’s the person into thinking that she is a friend and to tell me what happens. The medic is sent in to heal the person and she mentions how she’s surprised that the person has lived this long.

Elina can’t get a response from the survivor and the medic starts cutting away clothing to try to get to the wounds but manages to pull on the cloth glued to the skin with blood and puss starts to leak from where the skin pulled at the wound. The medic says “My recommendation is to simply burn the entire room.” Kalmen asks why and the medic shows him… “I don’t think she’s entirely human anymore.” She presses down on the skin of the body and it reacts like the skin of a water balloon and indents then snaps back into place.

The group steps back a bit from the body and Elina notices a rippling from the body and moves away. The body undulates up into a sitting position before the four armsmen in the room gun it down.(One of the guardsmen ended up rolling a Fighteous fury and did like 25 points of damage. Very impressive. Also the description I gave of how the body tried to rise was one of those air inflated cactus things that fall over and then kind of inflate back up)

Kalmen orders that all the cells be opened all the all the bodies shot and confirmed dead. All count there are roughly 40 bodies that end up being purged and given the Emperor’s Blessing. The clothing and uniforms on the bodies show them as rattings on the Luck and Gambit as well as underclass from Sanctuary. There are even a couple with tribesmen outfits from Eos itself. No habitat seems to have been spared from being harvested.

After having purged the cells, Kalmen instructs the armsmen to head out through the west corridor and clear the northern door. The door itself is human sized and opens with a touch. Inside there are twelve doors that are very similar to any of residence doors on Sanctuary. Kalmen instructs the guards to be assigned to each door, to open them all at the same time and to call clear if the room is clear.

All twelve doors open at once and twelve chorus’ of “Clear” are called. One of the armsmen calls over Thale and Kalmen and shows them a Shrine to the God-Emperor. In response to Thale’s odd look, the armsmen says “I thought it was odd in a place like this.” The rooms are small and simple chambers with beds and writing desks. There are small charms and nick-knacks but generally they are not personalized.

The passageway to the west is an abandoned tunnel that has the mining equipment still left in it.

The door south is opened and cleared pretty quickly. It’s the Enginarium of the base. The reactor, life support, water processing and enginseer access are all in this room. Kalmen asks Lucian to confirm that nothing in this room can hurt them and Lucian agrees but with a couple provisos that anything could be theoretically used against them.

Next the group moves on to the Southern door and opens it up to find a smaller warehouse similar to the one in the level above with a door to the east that is man sized but shows scuff marks of some kind below the door.

The group opens the eastern door and Thale sends the armsmen in to clear the room with Kalmen, Lucian and Elina following shortly after. The room was a charnel house of blood and viscera. The room itself was a dirty and dark manufactorum with individual work tables spread across the room. In the northern end of the room was an automated forge of some kind. But the bodies, there were about twelve whole bodies and probably enough pieces for two more bodies. The bodies are all of Adeptus Mechnicus tech-priests. Elina is able to determine, with Lucian’s help that it’s likely that the main door to the elevator opened and the closest tech priests were killed first with the rest having more time to react. The priests closest to the door are slumped over their equipment or slouched to the floor next to their work table.

Lucian finds through marks in the blood and on the floor that it was probably 7 total people. Two different types of tread patterns. 6 of one tread pattern and 1 of the other.

There are no identifying marks on any of the Mechanicus bodies. Just general tech-priest robes.(However, I should have identified at least one of the bodies. Lucian would have recognized one of the Tech-Priests by face instead of by clothing. He’s one of the under priests that service some of the nastier sections of the Luck. Lucian hasn’t seen him in months but on a ship the size of the Luck that’s not unusual. “Vehanian”)

The manufactorum itself gives Lucian a very queer feeling and it takes him a moment to notice what it is. There is no offeratory wafers, no prayer shrines, no sacred oils or unguents. This Manufactorum is empty of all ways to bless the newly risen machine with prayers to the Omnissiah.

The group moves back into the elevator and presses button three. The darkness closes around the group and the sound of shuffling armsmen can barely be heard above the noise of the elevator.

About thirteen minutes later the elevator shaft breaks out into an dark seemingly empty room.

The elevator comes to a stop and the pitiful light of the two small lights illuminates a very small area around the elevator. Off to the east a slight red and green glow can be seen but not made out. It’s almost as if the floor is glowing. Elina, not needing to see, notices a writhing mass of biting and gnashing insects to the north west and then combat begins.

The first swarm crawls, flies and jumps into the midst of the group and starts trying to eat armsmen. Laser fire and bolter shells do little to stop the thousand hungry maws of the chittering horror. The beast continues to eat armsmen as Kalmen and Lucian pour weapons fire into the mass. Elina uses her psiblades to try to and destroy the swarm but it proves resistant to the destructive force of her weaponry. Thale calls to the emperor’s might and fires into the swarm as Elina notices a second swarm. The first is destroyed at roughly the same time as the second slams into the crowd on the elevator. This one proceeds to fills it’s ravening hunger with human flesh and doing horrific damage to the armsmen. A third and eventually a fourth abomination comes into the light to feast on the flesh of mortal men. Lucian is injured seriously by the third swarm and moves to avoid getting eaten by the fourth. With all the weapons fire concentrated on the last swarm it goes down relatively quickly.

The group loses 4 armsmen, 2 armsmen are injured and Lucian heavily injured. All seven have voidsuits that have been rendered useless by the gnashing pincers of a thousand insects. The game was called there on account of lateness.

Kalmen is in the Navigator’s pod with his mentor, the lead Navigator from the Gambit, going over some drills and practicing.

Lucius is communing with the cogitor arrays working over troubling readings from the auspex. The _Luck_’s auspex had been detecting energy and gravitational readings from the vicinity of Ares for weeks now. The readings have been off and on but nothing that can be pinned down to a specific location on or near the gas giant.

Elina is in stasis and not alert to anything.

Young Master Vryce and First Enginseer Lucious were both summoned to the bridge of the Vryce’s Luck for a communication from Jace Vryce.

Once on the bridge, Jace spoke to the young Master and told him about a mission that Geoff had specifically set for Kalmen. Jace mentioned how Father thought this would be a good opportunity for Kalmen to get some experience and his talents could be put to some good use.

“For the last little while, the tech-priests have been complaining about a problem out near the Emperor’s Eye. They’ve been trying to get us to investigate what is obviously a minor issue and not worth our time. However, Father, in his infinite wisdom, feels that it’s worth spending you on. So you are to take a vessel and investigate the matter. Take a Mechanicus with you as well. Oh, and Father authorizes letting out the Astropath for this. He seems to think this is odd enough to let her out. Marcella and the Luck are busy and not to be wasted on such a pointless mission. The Guncutter will be ready momentarily.”

Kalmen instructs Lucius to bring the Astropath out of stasis while he checks on the guncutter and gets ready. He gathers all his gear and speaks to Thale, a sergeant that had been bodyguard for Kalmen before, about a military escort on the guncutter. Thale says he’ll get a group assembled and meet Kalmen in the lifter bay. Kalmen requests a demo expert and a Medic.

Lucius gathers his gear and heads down to the stasis chamber to let out Elina. He instructs the guards on duty to be careful since she killed 20 good men the last time before she went back in.
Lucious has two junior tech priests activate the mechanism to release Elina from stasis. Tens of minutes later the pod opens and behind the shimmering curtain of power the hooded visage of the Astropath is seen. The tech-priests apply the sacred unguents, words and swift kicks to get the stasis pod to release it’s captive.

The veil of power drops and Elina blinks to a different view from the one she last saw moments ago. Some banter follows between Lucius and Elina but they head to the Guncutter.

Kalmen has already arrived to find an escort of 20 armsmen ready to depart. Kalmen greets Thale, who will be acting sergeant for the trip. Kalmen gets on board and into the co-pilot’s chair.

Lucius and Elina arrive to find the military escort filling into the guncutter and take their places as well. They sit in the command bay, of six seats, down from the command chair. Lucius has spoken with the Mechanicium prepping the guncutter and done the final checks and blessings to the Machine God for the coming expedition. “May the Omnissiah protect and keep us.”

Lucius does note that the armsmen are all armored and lasgun equipped. With the dwindling technological base of the system finding working energy weapons and armor has become more and more rare. The simpler to manufacture stub guns have become standard equipment for most armsmen. To allocate such an amount of blessed tech to this expedition seems odd.

The trip to the moons of Ares is uneventful. Lucius is able to determine the specific moon that the readings are coming from(Ares-5) and they change headings for the guncutter.

As they get closer to the moon, Elina extends her mind out into the warp and feels for the moon. The bloated purple and green stench of warp entities fills her mind and she knows immediately where they are on the moon. The are in “this section and about a mile down.” She closes her mind to the hoarse screams and sly whispers of the warp and tells Kalmen where to examine on the planet.

During a flyover the group finds an Imperial built hatch dug into side of the moon. The hatch is easily large enough to fit the guncutter as well as other potential ships. If the team knew the entrance codes they could signal the doors to open. But the coded vox channels stymie Lucius and they land to give Lucius a chance to convince the machine spirit of the door to open.

The machine spirit refuses to listen to reason and they are forced to try to blow the door( I should have allowed either of these rolls to work. Although, I think allowing the Machine Spirit to win and then allowing the demolitions to work would have made for more sense. Having so many failed rolls for people that are supposed to awesome seems weird. ) The demolitions attempt fails and they fall back on using the shipboard weapons of the guncutter to rip open the door.

The hangar underneath is exposed to the vacuum of space and the equipment in it is ruined and thrown around the hangar in the gun fire.

The pilot of the guncutter carefully lands the cutter in the hangar and the group and escort suit up and go out. There are three exits from the hangar. Two industrial freight size doors and one more human normal door. The team chooses the human normal door and heads for that door.

The group cycles through the airlock with Lucius’ servo skull, Yorick, leading and investigate the corridor. The corridor ends in a normal Imperial door. Something that would be natural to find even on the Luck. Very little dust can be found on the corridor floors.

Elina, the astropath, senses demons again cautions the group about the door. They decide to have the airlock open to space and then open the door. In theory, the vacuum should injure whatever is in the next room. The eventually force the airlock and debate having the Guncutter shoot the door open… but calmer heads prevail and they simply use the servo skull to press the open button. The group retreats to the guncutter in order to use the larger weapons of the ship to destroy anything that is ejected from the room. The room beyond empties itself of air in a whoosh. A very anti-climactic whoosh.

Leaving behind two armsmen with the guncutter, the group heads in to investigate and finds a control center with several servitors still working at their posts. The human portions of them not fairing so well in the hard vacuum. Lucius connects to the cogitor array and speaks with the Machine Spirit of the station and gets a quick map of the first level and some images from the two cameras. The show a warehouse of crates and an elevator going down.

Questioning the spirit determines that the last recorded entrance to the base was two weeks ago and the ship left shortly after that. There is also a small power and life support draw on the lower level. The spirit also indicates that the station has been online for only about 2 years.

The group leaves behind two guards to watch the control center and heads over towards the warehouse area of the complex. In what becomes a somewhat normal pattern, the group cycles through the airlock into the corridor beyond. Armsmen flank the door and ready opposite it, then send in the servo skull while covering the skull and targeting the rooms/area beyond.

Kalmen and Elina have whispers in their ears that others can’t hear. They can almost make out the words and might be able to properly understand them if they only listened closer.

The corridor into the area is clear and they proceed down to the warehouse area. In the warehouse corridor they find the industrial motif continues into the warehouse itself but there are three human sized doors on the other side of the corridor.

The team first goes into the warehouse and find rows of shelving with crates on them and a honeycomb of what look like cold sleep chambers on the back wall. One of the crates are opened to find a rotting blob of flesh. Another is opened to find flesh with skin on and runes branded into the skin. A crate on another row is opened to find servo mechanisms. Another has crates of stubbers and projectile weapons. Lucius hypothesizes that you could make several hundred servitors with the equipment and parts in the room.

The crates have the label and mark of a manufactorum on Sanctuary.

They open one of the cold sleep chambers and find a pieced together body inside. The chamber itself is primitive and really more of a cooling/freezing unit. Something you certainly wouldn’t use if you care for the life of the occupant.

The body has a rune carved into it’s forehead. Lucius takes an image of the twisting and forbidding rune and reacts in shock as one of the hands grasps his wrist. He jumps back and puts a round of boltgun fire into the corpse. The body stops moving and the cold chamber is damaged.

The group, shaken by this encounter debate what to do with the remaining cold sleep chamber. Kalmen discusses turning them all off while Lucius advises caution since that might simply free everything in them. Eventually, the discussion is tabled for later.

Next the first door across from the warehouse is opened with the tactical servo skull going in first. The room is found to be a sparse bed chamber carved out of the bare rock of the moon. There is a simple wooden chair with a wooden table. The bed is a flat stone slab with no linens. The desk has some data slates and two books on it. The recessed lighting of the rest of the station is in the room as well.

The group moves into the chamber and begins to look around. Lucius picks up one of the books and flips through it. The cover is of an unidentified material with aging pages within. Initially, Lucius is positive he can’t read the material but is certain that with each additional page he understands more of the writing and glyphs within. Just one more page.

The rest of the group readies to move into the second room through the door from the bedroom and finds that Lucius is unwilling to put down the book and looking fevered and slightly frenzied as he continues to read the book. Shortly, Elina presses her mind down upon Lucius and rests his free will from himself. With his body as a plaything, she jerks his strings to force him to drop the book. The book removed from his hands, Lucius comes to himself again and apologizes. Lucius begins to hear the whispers in his ears as well… These whispers… they call his name…

Kalmen tells Elina to destroy the books with her Psi Blade. She destroys the book and shivers as the pages blacken and curl as the book is destroyed.

They tactically open the next door but the armsmen skitter to a stop at the doorway. The room inside has the walls and floor painted black in a flaking material. Inside are three small prayer shrines in each corner. Lucius is reminded of the prayer shrines in Engineering on the Luck. But those shrines don’t use splinters and shavings of bone in their decorations.

Quickly the group goes to the last room and enters the room. They find a barracks with kitchen and bathrooms and showers. The barracks looks like it could hold between 60-80 people.

A blog for your campaign

While the wiki is great for organizing your campaign world, it’s not the best way to chronicle your adventures. For that purpose, you need a blog!

The Adventure Log will allow you to chronologically order the happenings of your campaign. It serves as the record of what has passed. After each gaming session, come to the Adventure Log and write up what happened. In time, it will grow into a great story!

Best of all, each Adventure Log post is also a wiki page! You can link back and forth with your wiki, characters, and so forth as you wish.

One final tip: Before you jump in and try to write up the entire history for your campaign, take a deep breath. Rather than spending days writing and getting exhausted, I would suggest writing a quick “Story So Far” with only a summary. Then, get back to gaming! Grow your Adventure Log over time, rather than all at once.